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UNISON represents public sector staff.

We negotiate for better pay and conditions, help individuals in trouble and campaign for a safer, fairer society.

UNISON is Britain’s biggest union, representing almost 1.3 million people across the UK’s public services.

Education It’s ONE team – We all deserve fair pay

Colleagues

As part of this year’s pay campaign the Scottish Local Government Committee has agreed to move to the next phase focusing on education under the theme “It’s ONE team – we all deserve fair pay”.

During the month of June we will highlight the fact that education is delivered by a whole team and not solely by teachers. We are calling for fairness in pay and to remind John Swinney, Cabinet Secretary for Skills & Education, that in his negotiations he should consider whether or not it is fair to reward one part of the local government workforce whilst others continue to fall further behind.

UNISON have organised a postcard campaign for education workers and we are asking staff to actively participate in the fight for fair pay by filling in the cards for us to utilise in our discussions with the Scottish Government .and to emphasise that UNISON is the trade union for staff who support the delivery of education in Scotland.

Last year the Scottish Government, as part of the tri-partite negotiations for teachers, agreed a bigger increase than that given to other local authority workers. We understand that this could happen again this year and the message from UNISON is clear – our members cannot get less again.

Whilst this campaign is focused on education at this stage, it is part of our wider long-term strategy to achieve fairness for all local government workers.

Local Government branches across Scotland are co-ordinating the distribution and collection of postcards addressed to John Swinney. The postcards collected will be presented to the Cabinet Secretary at the end of June by delegates from across Scotland.

I would encourage all members to fully participate in pursuit of the fair pay we deserve.

UNISON Pension Bulletin No 55 – June 2018

International Workers Memorial Day – Friday the 27th of April

Clackmannanshire’s Joint Trade Union Committee will be hosting an event at the memorial stone in front of Kilncraigs at 10:30am on Friday the 27th of April.

Every year more people are killed at work than in wars. Most don’t die of mystery ailments, or in tragic “accidents”. They die because an employer decided their safety just wasn’t that important a priority. Workers’ Memorial Day (WMD) commemorates those workers.

Workers’ Memorial Day is held on or near the 28th April every year, all over the world workers and their representatives conduct events, demonstrations, vigils and a whole host of other activities to mark the day. The day is also intended to serve as a rallying cry to “remember the dead, but fight for the living”. In 2018 the theme for the day is “unionised workplaces are safer workplaces!”

It’s no secret – workplaces where there are active trade union safety reps are twice as safe as those without. In workplaces where staff are not valued, they are more likely to get injured, become ill, get disabled, have their working lives cut short, or sometimes die. Low pay, long or irregular hours, and poor health and safety all have a massive impact. That is why International Workers’ Memorial Day is a time to remind ourselves of the importance of health and safety and trade unions, as we remember the dead and continue to fight for the living.

This years speakers will include:

JTUC Chair — Andy Kane

Council Provost — Tina Murphy

Depute CEO – Nikki Bridle

UNITE — Mark Lyon

Families Against Corporate

Killing— Louise Taggart

H&S Officer — Hazel Lovatt

MP – Luke Graham

Budget Newsletter

Budget Update

We have the decision.

SNP Councillors have sold out workers and voted through their budget with the cuts to our terms and conditions intact. We had hoped that common sense and decency would prevail and that no further action on our part would be required, however this has proved not to be the case. We will be contacting the Scottish Government and our elected politicians to express our utter contempt for this decision and on our intention to respond. We still hope to avoid an all out strike and we will use every other means of industrial action open to us first if council officers proceed with the firing and re-hiring of all staff. However we do need to be prepared to take steps to protect all of our jobs and all of our terms and conditions.

This decision may effect you directly today, and if it does you’ll lose thousands of pounds of pay and pensions over the remainder of your working careers. However if it does not, please recognise that the last barrier to working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week all at straight time is about to be removed. We promise you that this will effect you in the future.

If you receive a ballot asking you to support Industrial Action it is ‘imperative’ that you return that ballot paper, no matter how you decide to vote. We would of course rather you vote Yes to protect yourselves and your colleagues however a low return of ballot papers will mean that this council can do what it likes to it’s workforce because it will know that it won’t have to face any consequences for their actions. If you do nothing else, please, return the ballot paper by post as soon as you receive it.

We will be posting updates to the website and on facebook as the situation develops. We would urge all members to check back regularly to keep themselves up to date on these events.

Budget Update / Protest

On Thursday the 8th of March Clackmannanshire Council will be sitting to agree next years budget. This years cuts are some of the worst we have ever seen and the removal of our terms and conditions are included in the paperwork. It seems unthinkable that SNP councillors would vote through proposals that they know will mean the firing of their entire workforce in order to reduce the wage bill, however it would appear that they may actually be prepared to vote this through.

This week we will be contacting all Elected Members to remind them of our opposition to forcing a change to the terms and conditions of staff, in addition we will be hosting a protest between 8.30 and 10.30 outside of Kilncraigs to make sure Elected Members get the message. We would encourage all of our members to take part where possible, by coming in a little earlier or starting their working day a little later. Better to lose a little of our own time now than suffer cuts to our wages or forced changes to our working hours in the future. So, if you can join us please do so and remember that it must be in your own time.

If these proposals are voted through without amendment on Thursday then Council Officers will move quickly in order to serve notice of the ending of our current contracts and the implementation of new ones. So we must be ready to move quickly too. We have therefore started preparations for a ballot on industrial action. We hope that this will not be needed but if it is then we must be prepared to take a stand against those seeking to do us harm, and make no mistake, for those facing a serious reduction in take home pay and pension, this will do great harm.

Our message is clear, we will not lie down and meekly allow Councillors to punish the hard working staff of Clackmannanshire Council because of the failures of management and councillors to run an efficient local authority in the past. It is not the staff who were responsible for costly hair brained schemes like Shared Services or for hiring expensive consultants at the drop of every hat. They did not create the financial difficulty that our organisation is now in, so they should not be the ones to pay the price now that the chickens are coming home to roost.

We hope to see many of you on Thursday.

CLACKMANNANSHIRE BRANCH

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING 2018

Thursday the 22nd of February 2018

Alloa Town Hall 12:00 til 2:00

The Clackmannanshire Branch of UNISON would like to invite you to join us at our 2018 AGM

For those attending there will be a free lunch provided from 12:00 until 12:15, and this year there is a free prize draw of a £50 voucher.

Our local branch is (as always) in need of new Stewards in many areas of the Council. Becoming a UNISON steward is a rewarding experience and it comes with training, a chance to develop new skills and the time off from your workplace to carry out the duties of a Trade Union representative. We would encourage you to consider becoming a new steward, especially if there is not currently a UNISON steward in your own area of work.

Our speaker this year is still to be confirmed

Audit Scotland report on Clackmannanshire Council Finances

Pam Robertson secretary of UNISON Clackmannanshire said: “The Scottish Government must step in to review how smaller councils are funded. Audit Scotland’s report suggests Clackmannanshire Council’s must cut a quarter of its operational budget.

These cuts will decimate libraries, classroom assistants, school music tuition and care in the community. Council staff are threatened with cuts in pay, working hours, and pensions. Staff have already voluntarily given up an hour of their working week to help deal with the budget deficit.

“Clackmannanshire Council must cut unnecessary projects and the use of expensive external consultants and stop attacking the terms and conditions of hard working staff who are doing their best to provide our services with fewer and fewer colleagues. UNISON are willing to discuss how they can help but we will not tolerate compulsory redundancies.”

Attacks on PAY = Attacks on Public Services

As you will probably have seen, UNISON have been running a Postcard Campaign to inform elected members of our opposition to attacks on pay via Unsocial Hours cuts and the erosion of our hard fought for Terms and Conditions. We are currently collating all the cards together and will be handing these over to Councillors shortly. If you haven’t yet filled out one of these cards we would urge you to do so and hand it into the office. If you don’t have any cards then feel free to print one off from the link below and hand it back into us.

As we approach the budget for 2018/19 it will be vital to send a clear message to the elected members that they can’t make their savings by attacking staff so we urge you to fill in a card, and to get members of the public, family members and friends who live in Clackmannanshire and who oppose cuts to Council Services to do the same.

Scottish Pension Bulletin October 2017

PROFESSIONAL SERVICES UNIT
BULLETIN FOR MEMBERS

Are you a UNISON member who is a registered professional member of any health and social care professional
regulatory body?

You may be entitled to be advised and represented by UNISON’s Professional Services Unit (PSU) if:
• You face allegations that your fitness to practise is impaired OR
• You have applied for registration or renewal of your registration with one of these professional regulatory bodies
but your application has been refused.